in reply to Re: This is not a pipe
in thread This is not a pipe

I like it. Although I think you meant:

!-p _

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Re^3: This is not a pipe
by pijll (Beadle) on Mar 12, 2005 at 13:59 UTC
    -p is a test operator, so your expression is more or less equivalent to a question: "Is _ (=this) not a pipe?".

    At least in Unix, '|' is not a valid filename, so -p '|' will always be false: "Is '|' a pipe? No.". So the ASCII representation of a pipe, '|', is never a pipe itself, which is exactly what Magritte meant with his painting.

      I've seen this assertion several times now, though the last time was a while ago. It hasn't gotten any more correct in the interim.

      $ touch \| $ file !$ file \| |: empty $ ls -l \| -rw-r--r-- 1 chemboy users 0 Mar 14 00:09 |

      That, for the record, was on Gentoo Linux on a G4, but similar results can be readily obtained on other platforms.



      If God had meant us to fly, he would *never* have given us the railroads.
          --Michael Flanders

        Thanks. I should have checked that.

        I probably meant: '|' is unlikely to be a pipe.